Vatican Adopts The Pedophile's Guide as New Holy Book (fiction/humor)

In the wake of the explosion of sex abuse accusations aimed at the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI has moved to rebuild the world's confidence in the Church by replacing the most popular and least read book, the Bible, with a new "Code of Conduct" for Priests/Pedophiles as well as all other servants of the lord.

The idea came to him in the form of a hot news article. Late last year, news broke of Phillip R. Greaves, who authored and self-published The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-lover's Code of Conduct. After reading what he called "this masterpiece", His Holiness called for a press conference at which he expressed his desire to mend the necessary relationship "between the servants and the served", although he didn't specify who is who.

"The bond between a Priest and a parishioner is a very important one," He exclaimed, "and the world needs to know that The Vatican is dedicated to maintaining a healthy bond."

The Pope went on to explain that maintaining this bond would require a paradigm shift of large proportions. He noted that all Priests should learn "the proper ethics" of molesting children. "For example," he explained, "many of our Priests, when asked, didn't even know that a young boy shouldn't be molested on his birthday. This is unacceptable."

When asked why the Bible had been replaced, the Pope responded, "We feel that whether intentionally or not, molestation of young children has become our area of expertise. The Bible is a great book if you want to know when it's okay to stone someone to death or when it's okay to own a slave, but it just doesn't say much about molestation. Our communities depend on us to molest their children properly. In other words, The Pedophile's Guide is just more relevant at this point in time."

Some Catholics have expressed anger over the decision of His Holiness to replace the Bible, but to their protests, Pope Benedict replies, "The Church has stood steady in the face of many such changes in the past and so many Priests have come and gone...," at which point the Pope laughed at his own pun and failed to finish his sentence...